The Struggle Of Survival
by crackbone110
Summary: A story about the life of immune survivors in a horrible and dangerous world, full of infected.They all have to work together to get out of the city... alive. The Left 4 Dead universe belongs to Valve.
1. The survivors

Note: This is the very first Fanfiction I've done, so please: Have mercy on me... XD. And please leave a comment about what you think.

I do not own the Left 4 Dead universe in any ways. All rights belong to Valve. All characters used, is purely fiction. The names of the Special Infected belongs to Valve. Any similarity with any real living person is all coincidence.

Enjoy...

* * *

He slowly opened his eyes when the first daylight pierced through the cracks, between the boards covering the windows in the gas station. His back hurt and as far as he could remember, he had only slept for about three hours. He sat up and looked around. There wasn't anything of use in here, it must have been looted several days ago. But at least he had shelter in here. From the things out there. He stood up and put on his winter jacket. He kept telling himself that it was too tick for their bites. He knew he was wrong. The bag lay on the floor, next to a desk in the back of the station. It was pretty clean in here, considering what he had seen other places. The bag was very light. Unfortunately. There was some cereals, which he ate for breakfast. He thought of his little girls. How happy they had been, just two weeks ago. He could fell tears on his cheeks, when he slowly took the gun from the bag.

* * *

"For the love of god!"  
Terrance was yelling again. As always.  
"Why the hell do we move so slow!"  
Hardy sighed.  
She was starting to get sick of him. All he did was complain. But they needed each other to survive. Hardy wished she had been military trained or something like that, so that she could take care of herself and didn't have to stick with Terrance.  
Terrance, the hillbilly with the rotten teeth and the smell of pigs. He had red hair and a shotgun over his shoulder.  
If it weren't because Hardy was such a bad shot and he wasn't, she had definitely left him behind. Left him for dead.  
The street was empty except for a few "sleepwalkers" over by a big truck.  
They had both decided not to waste bullets on them, unless they got aware of their presence. Which these ones clearly hadn't.  
One of them gave them a careless look, but that was all.  
Terrance opened Hardy's backpack.  
"Shit, we're gonna need to find some food.."  
Terrance sighed "Which probably will be impossible"  
Hardy tried to cheer him up: "I know a dinner, just around the corner over there."  
She pointed at the end of the street.  
"That settles it! Let's get moving"  
Terrance started running towards the end of the street, then suddenly stopped. Hardy slowly walked up by his side.  
"Wha.."  
"Shh!"  
Terrance held a hand over her mouth, "Can you hear that?"  
Hardy shoved his hand away and listened.  
And then she could hear the mad, coughing laughter.  
They both heard the stories from another group of survivors they met once.  
This laughter meant, that something called a Jockey was nearby. It had been described as a little, crippled and pale creature, which had a nasty habit of jumping onto the shoulders of a person and "ride" them around like an animal.  
Hardy didn't want to find out if that was true.  
They raised their firearms and waited for it to come around the corner.  
"I'll take the first shot," Terrance whispered  
"If I miss, you back me up"  
Hardy nodded slowly. She didn't like the pressure.  
The laughter came closer.  
Then a small, disgusting, old man came around the corner.  
He (or it was more suitable) had ripped clothes and was bend over, so that it was no taller than a cat. It ran incredibly fast, considering its height and it had blood all over its chin.  
It raised its arms and bent down in its knees, when the sound of a gunshot suddenly ripped through the air.  
Blood splattered from the creatures forehead, where a big hole had appeared. The Jockey immediately fell backwards and the hit the ground, with a most unpleasant sound.  
Smoke came from the barrel of Terrance's gun.  
He lowered his rifle.  
"Now let's go get some food" He acted like nothing had happened at all.


	2. The lethal man

Chapter two in the Struggle Of Survival. Now with more infected! All rights belong to Valve.

* * *

Not a single, shit stirring DNA- experimented bastard was going to get him. Ever.  
Walter P. Greenfield never used to be a man of violence.  
But when this pandemic emerged, he didn't seem to have a choice.  
So when he read about people eating people in other parts of the world than Africa, he went down to the local gun store and bought the biggest rifle they had.  
And now, the politician who used to be a soft and understanding person, was sitting on the second floor in a school, blowing heads of the infected outside.  
He reloaded the sniper rifle and took a glare through the scope. It was a quiet day outside this day. He searched with the scope, looking for something to hunt down.  
He stopped at the sight of a young girl, who had most of her face dug into a trashcan. It could have been a normal human, if it weren't for the skin color. It was grey.  
Damnation, he wouldn't mind having her up here. If she weren't infected that is.  
He sighed. "Oh well, better get this over with."  
He aimed at the back of her head and pulled the trigger. The head exploded in a mass of blood and the girl fell down the trashcan.  
"I consider that a job well done" Walter lowered his sniper with a confident smile, but raised it again when he saw a shadow of a man, at the end of the street.  
Strange, this guy had a normal skin color..

Terrance stood next to Hardy, when she opened the door to the diner.  
He took a glance at her while she was busy with the diner door.  
He liked what he saw. She was in her late twenties and had long black hair, which covered the most of her back. She was wearing a green t-shirt and standard jeans.  
Hardy pushed the door open.  
"Wauw" she muttered and stood still in the door.  
"What is it?" He walked up beside her and looked into the diner.  
He slowly opened his mouth.  
It looked like something from a fairytale. The dark castle of the dragon.  
A small stream of light came through one of the windows, with dust particles flying around inside the beam.  
There was six round tables standing in the middle of the diner, all covered with web. The front desk had a thin layer of dust, so had the bottles standing in the cabinet behind the desk. Even though they had only survived in this apocalypse for two weeks, they had seen a lot of things. People murdering each other for a can of peas. Bloody aisles in supermarkets. Wrecked and raided from everything, pharmacies.  
But this. You should think that it hadn't been touched by humans, for a thousand years.  
The whole diner had a calming brown color, except for the floor, which was covered with shiny, white tiles.  
Behind the counter stood, was Terrance had been looking for: food!  
Two great, white coolers containing everything from biscuits to sausage, vegetables to ice cream.  
"Jesus Christ!"  
Terrance took five long steps, before he stood in front of the coolers. He grabbed the handle of the left cooler and pulled the door open.  
A sweet and firm aroma of, what Terrance would consider as heaven, filled the room.  
"This is amazing!" Terrance yelled with joy.  
"Yeah, there's enough food for about two months here" Hardy replied.  
Terrance took a box of Sneakers, pried it open and ate everything within. Never had he thought, that he was going to taste the lovely flavor of chocolate, ever again.  
They both raided a shelf in one of the coolers and dragged the food over to a nearby table to eat.  
After a delicious meal, consisting of ham and donuts, they started filling Hardy's bag with everything from both coolers.  
Finally our luck is beginning to turn, Terrance thought, while filling the bag. It could almost hold everything, except for a paper bag of tomatoes, which Hardy ate.  
She put the bag on and went over to the door, but stopped because Terrance hadn't followed.  
"What are you doing?" she asked, clearly irritated.  
Terrance had opened the liquor cabinet and searched through the bottles.  
"I'm just getting something to celebrate with" he shouted in her direction.  
Terrance had always loved Billy Beer and hoped they still had a couple here.  
Damn, why is all the bottles stacked like this? Terrance thought to himself.  
Hardy whistled impatiently over by the door.  
Perhaps this was the thing that coursed Terrance, not to pay attention for a moment. His left shoulder hit the cabinet, which wasn't attached to the floor, with such power, that the whole cabinet came crashing down.  
All the bottles broke on the floor with a terrible noise and the whole cabinet fell onto the counter and smashed into pieces.  
Suddenly it was all like, that the order in this little paradise had been disturbed and now the outside world was returning.  
Terrance was paralyzed. Both him and Hardy knew what high noises meant. The Horde was coming.  
"Shit, let's get out of here, Terrance!" Hardy ran over to him and grabbed his arm.  
"Come on, let's move."  
Terrance started at the damage he had coursed.  
It was always him, who were the professional in this apocalypse, he finally felt like he was good at something. And now he had screwed up. Big time.  
A loud gunshot, brought him out of his daydream.  
Hardy had blown the brain out of an infected, which had just entered the front door. And many more were wrestling to get in, in this very moment.  
Terrance raised his shotgun and fired into the mass.  
Four zombies took direct hits from the shot and three of them fell. Some also got knocked over, but quickly got on their feet again.  
Terrance knew that they would never survive by defending this diner. They had to get out.  
"Find a way out!" Terrance yelled over the moaning sound from the infected, while reloading his shotgun. "I'll keep them busy."  
Terrance fired once again into the mob of infected, trying to push through into the diner.  
There was a mean sound of exploding flesh and the once so beautiful diner, was now covered with blood, around the corner where the door was.  
But it seemed like for every zombie Terrance killed, three more would appear.  
He fired again. A zombie which was about two feet away from him, got its whole upper body blown off and fell into the mass.  
Sweat came running down Terrance's back.  
This isn't going to last for more than minute! He was starting to wonder what it would be like to be dead, when suddenly Hardy yelled from behind him:  
"I found a bag door!"  
Terrance shot one more time, then turned 180 degrees and ran towards Hardy, who held a wooden door open.  
I'm going to make it, Terrance thought triumphal. Just a few steps more, then he would be out.  
He looked at Hardy's face while running.  
Strange how she was starring at something behind him.  
He then felt something around his one leg. It felt like a chain, dragging him backwards, towards the horde.  
He looked down and saw something that looked like a red power cable, however he knew it was a tongue.  
The Smoker suddenly pulled him back with such great force, that he fell forwards.  
The last thing he saw before he hit the floor, was a can of Billy Beer laying beside the fallen cabinet.

Walter took a cigarette from the carton and passed it in the direction of the man, sitting in front of him.  
"You want one?" Walter studying the man while asking the question.  
He didn't seem infected. But there was a difference of looking infected and being infected.  
The man just looked at him. Then slowly shook his head.  
Walter putted the carton back in his jacket pocket and took his lighter out.  
The man hadn't said much since Walter got him in here.  
He must be in some kind of shock , thought Walter. Or else he was just acting like a statue. Maybe both.  
Walter leaned a little forward on the bench, he was sitting on.  
"So, what's your story?" he asked. "Why did you just wander around out there?"  
The man had a small bag with him, but Walter didn't suspect it to be carrying any weapons. Probably just food or pictures of a long gone family.  
The man just raised his head as a response to the question.  
Walter kept looking at the bag. He was running low on food himself.  
Maybe he should ask the man to join him? No, that would be too big a risk, Walter knew that.  
The man was alone and as far as Walter had seen, unarmed.  
Right, best take the chance and kill him, Walter decided.  
He stood up and pretended like there was something outside. "Hey, did you hear that?"  
Walter walked over to the window. His rifle stood against the wall next to the window. Walter could just reach out and take it, from where he was now.  
He looked over his shoulder. The man was still sitting where Walter had left him. Good.  
This was almost too easy.  
Quickly Walter reached out and grabbed his sniper rifle. He turned with the gun up to his shoulder and took aim.  
The gunshot echoed through the entire building and a few birds on the roof, left their sitting spot with complaining cries.  
Smoke came from the barrel of the gun.  
A small P228. A handgun designed for medium ranged combat.  
Of course, Walter thought. He had it under his jacket all the time. Stupid of him not to think that.  
Walter dropped his rifle and fell to his knees. Blood streamed from the big hole in his gut and he coughed up blood also.  
The man slowly raised from his seat and walked over to Walter.  
"Want to know my story?" he whispered in a hoarse voice.  
"My name is Desmond Kingston. I'm an ex-military with more than thirty lives on my conscience. Let's make that thirty one now."  
He took his bag and the sniper rifle, then walked away, while Walter bled to death.

* * *

Please, leave a comment about what you think :).


	3. Plans of a better future

The third chapter about the struggle to survive in an infected world. It calls for bigger guns. All rights belong to Valve.

* * *

Hardy had always been good at running since high school.  
Good thing, because right now was the only thing she needed running.  
She heard Terrance's death cry, when she pushed the back door open and ran out in the bright daylight.  
The sun burned her eyes for a few seconds, but she didn't have time to stop.  
The moaning sounds behind her was getting closer. She didn't want to look back, just run.  
She was in a narrow alley behind the diner.  
There was no escape, except from a staircase on the building in front of her.  
However Hardy knew, it was too high for her to reach.  
"I need to think of a plan, NOW!"  
There was a dumpster standing against the wall beside her. It would take a lot of time and energy to move it, but she had no other options.  
Hardy ran over to the dumpster and pushed as much as she could. The dumpster was much lighter than she had excepted and it only took five seconds to place it under the staircase.  
However the infected had gained in on her.  
Three infected, an old man, a young boy and a fat man with a beard, were closer than the rest of the horde.  
Hardy turned, holding her gun in both hands and her legs spread. Her dad, which were a huge gun enthusiast had taught her, that this was the best stance for precise shooting.  
Hardy blew the head of the bearded man.  
The corpse fell frontwards and landed two feet from her. Hardy didn't notice it and shot the boy.  
However the bullet only hit his left shoulder.  
Because Hardy was so close the boy fell backwards, but quickly gained his balance again. He snarled madly and humped on one leg towards her.  
Hardy concentrated on the old man and fired through his forehead.  
As the old man hit the ground, the boy jumped towards Hardy and grabbed her arm. She dropped the gun in surprise.  
The boy open his bloody mouth and drilled his teeth into Hardy's arm.  
She screamed in intense pain. The blood streamed from the bite mark and it wouldn't seem to stop.  
The pain was unbearable. She had to make it stop and get out of here.  
Hardy raised her leg and kicked the boy into the incoming mass.  
But the boy still had his teeth in her arm, so when he was pushed away, he tore some of the skin off Hardy's arm and stumbled into the horde.  
Hardy closed her eyes and cried out in agony.  
The zombies came closer.  
Hardy had to focus, so with her last ounce of strength, she crawled onto the dumpster and reached up for the staircase.  
The zombies growled and tried to climb the dumpster.  
The boy who nearly bit her arm off, reached out for her ankle, but was unable to get it.  
Hardy had pulled herself up and was now laying at the first steps of the staircase.  
The zombies couldn't get her now. She hoped.  
Hardy suddenly felt so tired. However she had to put a bandage around her arm.  
The wound was bleeding badly.  
She crawled up the steps and came to the end of the stair.  
She was on the roof of the bank next to the diner.  
The stair and escape had taken a lot of her energy. Hardy lay flat on her stomach next to an air vent.  
Her sight went pitch black.

"I'm telling you! This is our only way out!"  
Don slammed both his fists down and the city map lay in between.  
His face had turned red because of the tension. Don had always had a thing for exaggerating everything.  
Especially now, as the whole world had gone to hell.  
Jacques pulsed on his cigarette and looked out the window.  
Sabrina finally took the word: "So you suggest that the safest way away from this city is, first travelling through a dark forest."  
She hold up one finger to make a clear statement.  
"Then wander right into the biggest city within a 100 miles and then go down to the docks to find some boat, which happens to broadcast a radio signal about a safe place. Is that it?"  
Don pulled in his black hair. The rest of the survivors looked at him. Awaiting.  
They were six people in the little cabin.  
Don, a middle aged, American man, who had taken the role as coordinator.  
Sabrina, the skeptic, blond haired woman, who never said no to hold the weapons and question Don's methods.  
The rest of the team included: Jacques, the absent French exchange student, Mike, a criminal youngster, Margret, the quiet peace loving old lady and finally the man known as Sarge.  
They were all scared of him.  
Not just because he had crew-cut hair and wore cameo clothes and army boots.  
When they all teamed up downtown and everything was chaos, the Sarge had brutally murdered three infected... by head butting them.  
This was enough to make the expression, that you don't mess with this man and live to tell the tale.  
The other survivors never really had the courage to speak to the Sarge. So he was mostly just standing in a corner and watching.  
Right now he was standing at the far end of the table, looking at Don.  
The candle on the table, was slowly burning out.  
After they all had teamed up, they decided to get away from the city.  
When they got out the outer areas of the city, they choose to make a future plan in this little cabin they found.  
It was a small wooden house, painted in white and with nothing more but a dining room and a bedroom.  
The gang was making plans in the dining room.  
Don sighed: "Look, I know it sounds completely mad, but.."  
"Completely mad!" Mike interrupted.  
"It's more than mad. It's the worst plan ever in the history of plans!"  
People started arguing and shouting about, wherever it was a good plan or a suicide mission.  
They all stopped talking, when a harsh voice said: "I think we should give it a shot."  
They all turned and looked at the Sarge. He had his arms crossed and his eyes stared at Don.  
"It sounds like you have thought this trough, son. So tell me: Have you planned how we are going to get some weapons?"

He had walked for about a half mile, when he saw her.  
In fact he heard the gunfire first.  
He had just passed an old gift store, when Desmond Kingston heard loud shots from an alley, a few blocks away.  
He had promised himself not to pick up any other survivor, but something made him walk faster. Towards the noise.  
As he came closer, he could also hear a horde of zombies.  
He stopped. If there were more than just five zombies, this was going to be really dangerous.  
But he could just turn around and walk away. Nothing stopped him from doing so.  
However when a loud female cry came from the alley, he decided to help.  
He ran towards the diner where the sounds came from.  
He held his trusted Berretta in both hands.  
He stopped. There was a lot of zombies in the diner, all heading for the backdoor.  
He couldn't take them all out by himself. Or maybe he could.  
Desmond remembered that he also had a hand grenade in his bag. Was this the time to use it?  
More gunfire convinced him that it was.  
Desmond opened his bag and pulled up the grenade.  
He had done this a thousand times on boot camp, it was no challenge.  
He armed the grenade and threw it into the diner.  
Only a few zombies noticed the grenade and they sat down on their knees to see what it was.  
Desmond ran over to the other side of the road and hid behind a parked car.  
The explosion shattered through the air and echoed in the entire city.  
Desmond held his hands over his ears to protect them from the noise.  
When he looked over the car again, the whole diner was in flames.  
A single zombie came running out of the diner, in flames.  
It screamed like a mad cat. It ran around in circles, desperately trying to put out the flames.  
It fell to the ground and lay still.  
Without realizing it, Desmond suddenly had a flashback to his time in Afghanistan.  
Him and his squad had to blow up a civil town, which also were a terrorist outpost.  
He still had nightmares about the screaming people, who were suffering as the flames slowly ate them.  
These zombies might not be human anymore, however they reminded him too much about the innocent people he had killed.  
He couldn't bear it.  
Why the hell did he do this after all?  
This was none of his business. He shouldn't had gotten into this.  
Desmond closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he ran into the burning diner.

It was about to become night. It was at least sunset.  
Jacques coughed with a horrible sound from behind the steering wheel of the pickup truck.  
The motor was humming and the front lights illuminated the big military depot, in front of the car.  
Margret was standing outside the car to get some fresh air while they waited for the others to come back.  
Jacques looked at his watch.  
Jesus, how long could it take just to get into a storage and get a few weapons?  
Jacques was being irritated. He got that a lot.  
When his school transferred him here to America, he got irritated.  
When this outbreak went loose, he got irritated.  
And he was defiantly irritated now.  
He'd better go check on them. Those worthless meatballs.  
He opened the door and stepped out.  
"Watch the car." He yelled to Margret as he walked over to the depot.  
He was stopping himself from adding the word "bitch" at the end of the sentence.  
The door to the depot was a bit rusty, but he got it open without too much trouble.  
It was total darkness in the big hall, except for the last ounces of sunlight coming from the windows.  
"Hallo!" Jacques shouting echoed through the entire building, but there was no answer.  
Now he was getting really irritated.  
Had they all just left him with that pacifistic carpet roll outside?  
He hated them all.  
Stupid zombie infection and stupid survivors.  
All he wanted, was to be back home in France and hit on girls.

The hunter was stalking its prey.  
It climbed on the pipes mounted to the ceiling, closely considering the young man below.  
He was apparently not armed. The hunter had felt bullets before and its instincts had taught it, that it was best to attack preys without firearms.  
The man hadn't noticed the hunter, as it was too dark in here.  
The hunter positioned itself in a set-off stance and had its target in sight.  
It snarled a bit and prepared to pounce...

Jacques leaned up against a wall.  
On second thought, France was probably infected too.  
Was there really nowhere in this world anymore, where you could just date girls.  
He flicked a cigarette.  
Maybe they had chicks in heaven.  
He was going to find out in a second.  
Jacques last thought, as he heard the loud attack cry of a hunter behind him was:  
"At least smoking didn't kill me."


End file.
